Tour de Fleece Update

I fell off that bandwagon.

My wheel is not yet back together (a few technical issues popped up during our move and have yet to be resolved, or, it's broken) and I hurt my shoulder by spinning too much on my drop spindle. So that was that for my first attempt at the Tour de Fleece.

I just attended Sock Summit 2011 where I bought more roving, so I need to fix my wheel and get back to injury free spinning.

I'll keep you posted.

Days Seven and Eight

I posted Thursday's spinning very late at night/early in the morning yesterday. I didn't spin at all yesterday, because we went to Mount Saint Helens.

Today I did yesterday's spinning.

And today's spinning.

The Green Monster and some Spinning

The big greenie is done!!! Two shots of it unblocked, proper blocked shots tomorrow.

A closeup, the lumpy bottom edge will look like lovely leafy lace once it's all sorted.

And a bigger shot, you can see we're still unpacking, please excuse the half empty boxes in the background.

And this year I decided to participate in the Tour De Fleece, where you set a challenging spinning goal and spin every day that the Tour De France rides. My goal is simple, to spin every day. I've been neglecting it.

So here goes, day one. A little bit of roving from Lorna's Laces. I forget the name of the colorway.

Sunday's are for Spinning?

I'm copying the Yarn Harlot's idea that one day should be for spinning, so that it doesn't get taken over by the knitting. And we all know that I let things get taken over by my knitting.

So this is what I worked on today.

It looks better in person.

This is the roving I haven't spun yet. It's so pretty.

It's a merino bamboo blend called Galapagos. It's super soft. I can't wait to ply it and make something, maybe a hat.

A Little More Detail

All cell phone photos, sorry for the crappy quality.

Josh, on the plane.


First sight of Ireland.

First pints, Bulmers.

Saturday morning.

And 5 minutes further down the street.

The Bride! This was very late and we were all quite drunk.

Salamanca, a lovey tapas place where we all met for dinner the day after the wedding.

Trinity College.

My peeps on Grafton Street, no family discount.

Delicious kebabs from Zaytoon's, highly recommended post pub.

Pints at O'Neil's.

The Guinness Storehouse, completely overrated, even when we were in the mood for touristy schlock. I say wikipedia how beer is made (if you aren't already aware) while you grab a pint somewhere else.

Josh, on a bus, whizzing past Christ Church. We did go in, another day.

First sight of London.

Parliament.

Dr. Laura Miller, my cousin, knows how to show a girl a good time.

Mr. Toby Joe, best dog of the trip!

Pigeon wanted in at Tate Modern.

Josh, pretty much how he looked the whole trip. (Camera to face)

Harrods.

Regent Street Apple Store.

Need I say more?

Our last look at Dublin.

My Loot!

Irish yarn purchased in Dublin at This Is Knit.

My new drop spindle, handmade on the Isle of Wight, with a little wool I purchased to play with, from the Handweaver's Studio in London.

Silk for spinning, also from the Handweaver's Studio.

Cashmere Merino blend, so soft, from Loop in Islington.

Lambswool, one of the softest things I've ever touched, also from Loop.

Reddish silk from Habu on a cone, a braid of hand dyed roving, and DK weight Wenslydale in an eggplant color (it just looks black), all from I Knit in Waterloo.

And on our last day Laura taught me how to crochet! She also bought me a wonderful little book, so I practiced all the way home on the plane and was able to complete my very first granny square. Yarn is GGH something or other purchased at Loop solely for the purpose of learning to crochet.   

The whole trip my travel knitting was the Clapotis Wrap knit out of a Cascade hand painted sock yarn. I got this far.

I actually ripped out the entire thing tonight. I had started it a little skinny, hoping to get by with one skein, I realized that that wasn't going to happen, so I bought another skein and am starting over, full sized. Why knit it skinny when I now have enough yarn?

Dirty Sheep!

More Peanut!  I've been spinning up the second batch of washed wool.  You can see that it isn't quite as washed as the first batch.  The new batch is to the right, the first batch is under it, to the left.  It's not too different, enough that I feel like a slacker though.  I'm pretty sure that the rest of the dirt will come out when I wash the finished yarn.  We will see I guess.  

You should see the floor under my wheel!  I pull out the little burs, plant stems, and short bits of wool as I go.  It gets pretty bad by my feel.  I need to sweep.  

Several Projects at Once

My techno-geek gloves, still very much in progress. These were sort of a prototype for gloves that I wanted to knit Josh. His gloves are pictured below. As you can see I am also not very far along on that pair.




Steph's scarf, also very much in progress. I'm almost done with the second ball of yarn (Stephanie bought three). So not too much more to go.




And some sock yarn I just bought for myself (I had cupons). It is a rather pretty self striping colorway, in a yarn that the Harlot speaks very highly of.





I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's site, and some Elizabeth Zimmerman books this past week. They've got me all worked up and ready to knit (I hadn't been working on Josh's gloves at all before yesterday). Worl wears me down, I arrive home in a semi-comatose state and get very little knitting done.


I've been spinning too, but it looks pretty much the same as the last photos. Today my clunky wheel repair kit arrived! I'm excited to fix my wheel, and a little nervous. I have to drill into the hub of the wheel to install the new axel. Taking drill to wheel is giving me pause. I'll work up the nerve soon.

Spinning

This, is becoming yarn!

I've started spinning the birthday roving.  It's really beautiful.  This photo looks browner than the real stuff, but there's no accounting for computer monitors.  

I wanted to make this into a lace weight two ply.  It might end up being more of a fingering weight though, which will still serve my purposes very nicely.  

Plied Yarn

I put my lazy kate on it's side, hoping that the friction between the bobbins and arms would provide some tension for plying.  I'm not sure it worked, but I was able to ply.  

Here is the first bobbin of yarn next to the upright lazy kate. I managed to get two bobbins of three ply before I ran out of the pink mohair.  Then I got another almost full bobbin of two ply brown.  Yay!  

Playing With My Wheel

I finished spinning the ball of brown roving I was working on.  I have another ball partly spun up on a drop spindle, and a ball of pink/purple to go with it.  

Then I started in on Peanut.  This photo is  a little deceiving because I transferred what was on the drop spindle to the bobbin and continued spinning.  But I did get a fair amount done tonight.  I'm almost out of cleaned Peanut.